DUP expects 'creeping direct rule' if Northern Ireland talks fail

James Brokenshire has given the parties ‘extra time’ to reach an agreement that would lead to the restoration of a cross-community coalition in Belfast.Photograph: Kelvin Boyes/Press Eye/PA

The Democratic Unionists have said they do not expect fresh elections in Northern Ireland if negotiations aimed at restoring power-sharing government fail, as political parties prepare to enter a final round of post-Easter talks.

A senior DUP negotiator said they believed the secretary of state James Brokenshire’s preferred option was the partial transfer of some devolved government departments back to London should the discussions “run out of road” next week.

The Northern Ireland secretary has given the parties extra time to reach an agreement that would lead to the restoration of a cross-community coalition in Belfast.

A roundtable discussion among the five main parties will not be held until 24 April with talks suspended over the Easter weekend.

On the prospects of a second assembly election within three months, the DUP negotiator said: “We firmly believe the secretary of state will start a process of creeping direct rule, which no one also really wants, rather than trigger a new election. An election without an agreement is meaningless and I don’t think it’s what people want out there.“

In March, Sinn Féin came within just one seat of catching the DUP, which remains the biggest party in the Northern Ireland assembly.

The DUP source at the talks said unionism would be “better prepared this time” if the British government gave in to Sinn Féin demands for a fresh election in the absence of a deal this month, adding: “I am confident there will be a transfer pact this time around with the main unionist parties but as I stress there is no need for an election. Most people out there want the government back up and running now, not direct rule, least of all an election.”

One of the two biggest barriers to an agreement is Sinn Féin’s demand for an Irish language act, which up until now the DUP has resisted. DUP sources are pointing to the offer this week by their leader, Arlene Foster, to meet Irish-language groups as an effort to “de-politicise” the issue.

Linda Ervine, who runs an Irish-language course in the loyalist Belfast East constituency, welcomed Foster’s move. Her organisation, which promotes Irish across all communities in the city, backs an Irish language act.

“Dialogue can only be positive and will allow an opportunity to experience the diversity within the Irish-language community,” Ervine said.

Divisions over the other main controversial issue – the legacy of the Troubles and past crimes connected to the conflict – were laid bare on Good Friday morning in Belfast city centre.

Hundreds of military veterans and their supporters staged a rally outside city hall in protest over the arrest and prosecution of former soldiers who were involved in killings during the Troubles. Many of those taking part in the protest wore berets and flew the flags of British army regiments.

Two former soldiers have been told they will be prosecuted for murder over the 1972 death of Official IRA commander Joe McCann.

Another prominent case involves Dennis Hutchings. The 75-year-old former soldier faces trial over allegedly attempting to cause grievous bodily harm in relation to a fatal shooting in 1974.

Doug Beattie, retired army captain and winner of the Military Cross in Afghanistan, told the Justice For Northern Ireland Veterans demonstration “it wasn’t fair” that a soldier charged with a killing before 1998 could serve a life sentence in jail while paramilitaries convicted over Troubles’ deaths would be freed within two years under the prisoners’ amnesty of the Good Friday agreement.

Beattie, who is also an Ulster Unionist party assembly member, said: “Where is the soldier’s right to life? Where are their investigations? We all deserve justice.”

A large force of police officers kept the Justice for Northern Ireland Veterans group back from a smaller band of republican dissidents in Royal Avenue shortly before noon. The hardline republican group Saoradh (”liberation” in Irish) held up a banner stating: “British state murderers have Irish blood on their hands”. Others on the 200-strong protest held up photographs of people who had been shot dead by the British army and the police during the Troubles.

The counter-demonstration by the republican organisation, which has the backing of New IRA and other dissident republican prisoners in jails on both sides of the Irish border, passed off peacefully.

It also emerged on Good Friday that one of the DUP’s demands at the talks is for the introduction of the armed forces covenant into Northern Ireland. The region is the only part of the UK where the covenant guaranteeing employment and public services’ rights to military veterans does not yet apply.